“That was originally a trench for natural-gas pipes. There was once a large pumping-station on the site of this house, with a big trunk main running off across country to supply the towns west of here. The gas was exhausted, and the pipes were taken up before I began to build. I should never have thought of that tunnel in the world if the trench hadn’t suggested it. I merely deepened and widened it a little and plastered it with cheap cement as far as the chapel, and that little room there where I put Pickering’s notes had once been the cellar of a house built for the superintendent of the gas plant. I had never any idea that I should use that passage as a means of getting into my own house, but Marian met me at the station, told me that there was trouble here, and came with me through the chapel into the cellar, and through the hidden stairway that winds around the chimney from that room where we keep the candlesticks.” “But who was the ghost?” I demanded, “if you were really alive and in Egypt?” Bates laughed now. “Oh, I was the ghost! I went through there occasionally to stimulate your curiosity about the house. And you nearly caught me once!” “One thing more, if we’re not wearing you out—I’d like to know whether Sister Theresa owes you any money.” My grandfather turned upon Pickering with blazing eyes. “You scoundrel, you infernal scoundrel, Sister Theresa never borrowed a cent of me in her life! And you have made war on that woman—” His rage choked him. He told Bates to close the door of the steel chest, and then turned to me. “Where are those notes of Pickering’s?” he demanded; and I brought the packet. “Gentlemen, Mr. Pickering has gone to ugly lengths in this affair. How many murders have you gentlemen committed?” “We were about to begin actual killing when you arrived,” replied Larry, grinning. “The sheriff got all his men off the premises more or less alive, sir,” said Bates. “That is good. It was all a great mistake,—a very great mistake,”—and my grandfather turned to Pickering. “Pickering, what a contemptible scoundrel you are! I lent you that three hundred thousand dollars to buy securities to give you better standing in your railroad enterprises, and the last time I saw you, you got me to release the collateral so you could raise money to buy more shares. Then, after I died”—he chuckled—“you thought you’d find and destroy the notes and that would end the transaction; and if you had been smart enough to find them you might have had them and welcome. But as it is, they go to Jack. If he shows any mercy on you in collecting them he’s not the boy I think he is.” Pickering rose, seized his hat and turned toward the shattered library-door. He paused for one moment, his face livid with rage. “You old fool!” he screamed at my grandfather. “You old lunatic, I wish to God I had never seen you! No wonder you came back to life! You’re a tricky old devil and too mean to die!”